tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55038319385071649892017-09-07T17:52:55.724-07:00Toivo on TechnologyToivo Vollnoreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-35988229258418396592014-01-27T17:55:00.001-08:002014-01-27T17:58:09.950-08:00Windows Phone 8 / Nokia Lumia 521<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y8grFYPvphE/UucB2JX41vI/AAAAAAAAStg/yyYYsYVGQzw/s1600/_TVO8076.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y8grFYPvphE/UucB2JX41vI/AAAAAAAAStg/yyYYsYVGQzw/s320/_TVO8076.jpg" /></a></div> My Galaxy Nexus got finally to the point of being unusable &mdash; it was almost impossible to charge, and neither Google nor Samsung seem to have any desire to support the phone. I went and plopped down $69 for a Nokia Lumia 521 at a local Microsoft Store (which turned out to be a kiosk in a mall food court, not quite competition to the nearby Apple store). I had eyed the Moto X, but $400 vs. $69 is a pretty big difference. <p>I'm on a grandfathered plan with T-Mobile, and traditionally it has made more sense for me to keep buying unlocked phones. Philosophically I also prefer paying for my service, then paying for my phone separately from it, without being locked into contracts that obscure the true cost of what I'm getting. Luckily T-Mobile makes this easy. <h2>The Lumia 521</h2>$69 for a smartphone with no commitment is a pretty sweet deal &mdash; or rather, one should set one's expectations accordingly. The Lumia 521 has no front-facing camera for video chats, has no hypergigapixel camera (5 MP), has no flash or autofocus light for the camera, has no acceloremeter, doesn't even have the FM radio found in every other Nokia phone I've had over the last decade. It doesn't have a trueblack screen. It comes in white, white or white. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-618SMyNE0Pw/UucCCOuwPGI/AAAAAAAAStw/4CpLyfeM5Pk/s1600/_TVO8084.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-618SMyNE0Pw/UucCCOuwPGI/AAAAAAAAStw/4CpLyfeM5Pk/s320/_TVO8084.jpg" /></a></div><p>It does, however, have a micro-SD slot taking up to a 64 GB cards, allowing you to download music, maps etc. It seems to work fine with my old Galaxy Nexus headset, which is good because it didn't come with one. <p>The phone consists of two parts. The back and sides are one continuous piece of plastic, similar to protective covers you can buy for other phones. To get to the battery, SIM and SD-card slots you simply pry it off the phone. The power button, volume rocker and camera shutter button are integrated into the cover. They have a surprisingly good feel, and it's noteworthy that the camera shutter is a proper two-stage affair. <p>The second part is the guts of the phone; only the camera lens and display are visible through the wraparound cover when it's on. Like some of the higher end phones in the Lumia line, the benefit of the wraparound plastic is that even if you scratch it, the scratches won't be particularly visible as there's no smooth surface to damage and the color is part of the plastic rather than a coating. I put the phone in my pants pocket without even a thought of a protective cover, although its price may have also encouraged me in this. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lVs9Qbe4iHE/UucCEqI9rlI/AAAAAAAASt4/SrDoYg3bH98/s1600/_TVO8086.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lVs9Qbe4iHE/UucCEqI9rlI/AAAAAAAASt4/SrDoYg3bH98/s320/_TVO8086.jpg" /></a></div><p>My initial impression was very positive. I had worried about the logistics of getting a new SIM card from T-Mobile (the Galaxy Nexus uses a mini-SIM, the Lumia 521 uses a micro-SIM; some other new phones have a nano-SIM. So much for that standard...) but it turns out this was a non-issue; there was a micro-SIM in the box with a phone number and URL. I punched it up in my mobile browser from my old phone, and within minutes my old SIM was deactivated and my new phone was up and going. Easy-peasy. Kudos to T-Mobile. <p>The phone comes with the SIM card, micro-USB charger, and super-short micro-USB cable, and some paperwork. No case, bag, or earbuds. <p>Compared to the Galaxy Nexus, the Lumia 521 screen is vastly better, although it's being lambasted as being fairly poor as far as current phones go. I have no complaints. You can't calibrate the touchscreen, although you can set the sensitivity. It's supposed to work even if you have regular gloves on. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kK70ihD7rao/UucB3WZl5sI/AAAAAAAASto/nZmkuSduWfY/s1600/_TVO8082.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kK70ihD7rao/UucB3WZl5sI/AAAAAAAASto/nZmkuSduWfY/s320/_TVO8082.jpg" /></a></div><p>Inexplicably, when T-Mobile had Nokia spin the Lumia 521 variant of the 520 model, they added some 4 millimeters in length. Internet wisdom suggests this is so they could print their carrier logo on it. Of course the one I bought from Microsoft has no logo on it. What this means, though, is that aftermarket covers and similar accessories meant for the Lumia 520 don't fit the 521. In fact, the selection of specific accessories is next to non-existent. <p>Battery life is considered poor by other reviewers, but it's no worse than the Galaxy Nexus was when new. If I don't use the phone for more than the occasional email and Facebook check during the day, I have more than half battery left by the time I've made it home from work. On the other hand, running GPS-enabled fitness apps and podcast playback in a forest with borderline cell coverage (meaning that the phone has to use full power on its radio) will suck half the battery in a matter of an hour and a half. It seems to charge back up quite quickly too. <h2>Windows Phone 8</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iWoQ8DiAujA/UucI_FyUuQI/AAAAAAAASuQ/H_23eoJ04g4/s1600/wp_ss_20140127_0001.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iWoQ8DiAujA/UucI_FyUuQI/AAAAAAAASuQ/H_23eoJ04g4/s320/wp_ss_20140127_0001.png" /></a></div>The user interface is amazingly smooth. Swipes are easy and smooth, and the inertia works as expected. Many of the basic functions of the phone, like unlocking, alarm clocks, contact list and so forth are as good as instantaneous. Night and day compared to my Samsung Galaxy Nexus. <p>The Windows Phone 8 Metro interface divides people. I dislike it intensely on my Windows 8 laptop. On the phone, however, it's great. I love the consistent visual look in apps and the consistent behavior of left/right swipes to move between screens. The transition animations are pleasing. Every other phone OS could do well to learn a lot from this. <p>I use relatively few apps, so your needs may be quite different. The Windows Phone 8 main screen has tiles on a grid. Full-size tiles are two cells high and four wide. Half-size are two cells high and two cells wide. Small size are one cell. For most apps you can pick which size you want to have. The tiles can be "live tiles" i.e. update information constantly and provide you the latest Facebook update, weather etc. at a glance. <p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8m3UoTtbLL4/UucIMd9z_RI/AAAAAAAASuI/iyuhPi5oN7I/s1600/wp_ss_20140108_0003.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8m3UoTtbLL4/UucIMd9z_RI/AAAAAAAASuI/iyuhPi5oN7I/s320/wp_ss_20140108_0003.png" /></a></div> ...and here's the first caveat. Especially in this phone due to its RAM, you're limited as to how many apps you can have running in the background updating tiles. In practice this means you have to pick only a few. Even worse, in my view most of the tiles are useless, as they tend to only show one thing. The calendar only shows the next appointment. The Facebook tile only shows one update. The email app only shows the latest message. It's visually much prettier than Google Now cards, but Google's cards are vastly more useful, both in information content and their ability to change cards based on what's relevant. One attempt to make up the difference is the Here suite "My Commute" where you tell it ahead of time around what time you're typically going from where to where, and it'll prefetch the traffic and routing info into a live tile. This is similar to the Google Now card, though doesn't work quite as well in practice. <p>The second issue with Windows Phone 8 is the utter lack of customization. It goes to ridiculous lengths. For example, the phone has a volume rocker. It sets the phone volume. This is used for all alarm sounds as well as audio playback. To repeat &mdash; you can't set the ringer volume separately from the audio playback volume. There is no ascending volume either. There are no real themes to change the visual appearance of the phone, and you're pretty limited on what you can do with the lock screen. You can load your own ringtones easily enough, though. <p>In the Symbian era Nokia made great phone hardware, consistently let down by half-baked software. Has Windows Phone 8 changed that? I'd have to say yes and no. The operating system and the integrated Here suite of apps certainly are of higher quality than even Symbian^3. However, the apps are another story altogether. Here's a list of the apps I use, and my problems with them: <ul><li><b>MyFitnessPal</b> &mdash; It's just plain broken. You can't add entries to your food diary. Not that you can't add new foods; you can't add an entry of what you ate. They've been aware of it since early December last year, but so far no fix in sight. <li><b>Endomondo</b> &mdash; I still miss the Nokia Sportstracker, but that aside, I used Endomondo a lot on my Galaxy Nexus, paired with a Zephyr HxM Bluetooth heart rate monitor (HRM). Surprise! For no obvious reason, there's no HRM support on the Windows phone version of Endomondo. No official response from Endomondo on their support forums that I can find. Instead I switched to <b>Caledos Runner</b>, but it's wretched and borderline unusable. It should be mentioned that the HRM pairs with the phone like a dream, and another Caledos app that does nothing more than show the current BPM works peachy. <li><b>Google+</b> Doesn't exist. Neither does Google Maps, Google Now, Gmail or virtually any other Google product. This kind of hurts. <li><b>LastPass</b> &mdash; Works great. <li><b>Waze</b> &mdash; The Windows Phone version is quite buggy. For example, pulling up your podcast app to pick something to listen to during a drive, then switching back to Waze causes it to crash. Navigating in an area with sketchy cell coverage causes it to crash. You get the idea. <li><b>Podcast Lounge</b> &mdash; None of the podcast apps I used on Android appear to be available on Windows Phone, so I went with this. It's visually pretty, but it has some screens you can't get rid of (like a category directory pre-populated and non-editable), and it insists on updating a feed every time you enter the episode list. This takes a while, especially if you're out of coverage. "Now playing" is fairly well hidden as well, and not the default screen you get to when resuming the app from the background. <li><b>Yelp</b> &mdash; I only use this to look for restaurants; I don't have a login. Works great. <li><b>Facebook</b> &mdash; There is no Facebook app from Facebook for the phone, but Microsoft has cooked up their own. It's pretty slow and appears to have no way to do things like timeline review (links to it do nothing). It's usable, though. <li><b>Pandora</b> &mdash; I had gotten rather used to Google Music instead, but had to switch back to Pandora since Google Music won't work. No problems, aside from occasional failure to return to playback after being interrupted by a GPS announcement or text message. </ul>In fact, one of the most glaring annoyances is switching between tasks. I don't know if it's the limited RAM, the OS, or badly written applications, but you need to get used to the idea of switching from one application to another taking an inordinate amount of time. Even worse, a lot of apps, when brought back to the foreground, don't put you on the screen you were in when you backgrounded them, but act as if you had just started them from scratch. Some, like the built-in Here navigation work fairly well with it, taking a while to figure out what they were doing and resuming. Others, like Waze or Caledos Runner, just completely forgot that you were navigating or in the middle of an exercise activity, so you have to restart things every time. <p>Much like Facebook, in the "neener neener, I'm not touching you" act Microsoft and Google appear to be engaged in, Microsoft has rolled Gmail support into their native email app (which, incidentally, is probably the best I've seen in supporting email services and being pretty functional). The phone integrates corporate Exchange contacts, Google and Google+ contacts, Skype contacts, Microsoft Live contacts and Facebook contacts. This is nice, though not quite as well done as it was on Symbian^3. It is also very annoying when people have bogus or old information on Facebook, as the phone won't let you edit or delete those entries. The contacts functionality works well in general, and Gmail support is usable, though it comes with all the usual IMAP/POP3 limitations. <p>Purchasing apps is dangerously easy. The app store, by default, charges your purchases to your cell phone account, so you don't have to add separate payment info. <p>One aspect where Android wipes the table with Windows Phone is the keyboard. Android has built-in a Swype-like functionality where you just swipe your finger on the keyboard, and don't have to exactly hit the keys. The Windows Phone keyboard requires you to actually hit the keys, and it doesn't allow you to enter numbers and symbols with a long press, you have to actually switch modes to do that. Swype is not available as an app, either. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-znDRlxg962s/UucLoCvJfWI/AAAAAAAASuY/PEH87cQ-FjQ/s1600/wp_ss_20140127_0002.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-znDRlxg962s/UucLoCvJfWI/AAAAAAAASuY/PEH87cQ-FjQ/s320/wp_ss_20140127_0002.png" /></a></div><p>The phone comes with speech commands. They're somewhat more limited than Google's, but appear to work about as well, i.e. when I try to navigate somewhere or send someone a text message, it works about half the time, and lands me in a web search window the other half. A special kudo goes to the text message functionality, though. When the phone is paired to my car and a text message arrives, the phone announces that I have just received a new text message from <em>sender</em>, and asks me if it should read it or ignore it. If I say "read", it reads the message, then offers further actions like reply, call. I can listen to the message and dictate a response without pressing a single button. <h2>Conclusion</h2>The Lumia 521 is an amazing value for money. It's clearly limited in hardware and in software, and some of those limitations may be severe enough that this is not the phone for you. It's not the phone for Facebook addicts, multitaskers, app-addicts or users of Google services. On the other hand, it's visually elegant and works well; the things it does it does well. The camera is basic, but surprisingly decent. <p>Microsoft's SkyDrive is a very reasonable Google Drive replacement; pictures can get auto-uploaded to it and the web interface is way nicer than Google's. Instead of Google's Keep, there's OneNote. There are also some media services under the X-Box and Zune labels, but I can't speak to those. <p>If you tend to use one app at a time, if the apps available are enough for you, and you just need a basic smartphone, it's hard to not see the Lumia 521 as a winner.Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-42605586076198883912013-11-05T16:29:00.002-08:002013-11-05T16:39:40.974-08:00The Perfect Camera Backpack: Clik Elite Obscura vs. Lowepro Primus AWThe only thing more difficult than taking a good photo is finding a bag for your photo gear. <p>Fine, that's hyperbole, but I've long been looking for a bag that meets my needs. In particular the challenge is to find a bag for "adventure travel" or hardcore touristing; it needs to not only carry my camera gear, but also a jacket and other layers, lunch, water, maps, souvenirs etc. <p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B_zOW2csMWg/Unl4pB2_XoI/AAAAAAAAQk4/QFhbfo7uUdU/s1600/_TVO8058.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B_zOW2csMWg/Unl4pB2_XoI/AAAAAAAAQk4/QFhbfo7uUdU/s320/_TVO8058.jpg" alt="Lowepro Primus AW vs. Clik Elite Obscura" /></a></div>The best backpack I had found was the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PEpvQj9VC0">Lowepro Primus AW</a> (AW is Lowepro-ese for having a rain cover, All Weather). It has a great carry system with a proper hip belt, sternum strap and load lifters. It also has a relatively large non-camera compartment, and a tripod attachment. It has served me well on multiple trips to Japan and elsewhere, but a few annoyances remained: the built-in tripod carry system was entirely inadequate for a medium-sized tripod (Gitzo GT2541 with Benro B0 ballhead). Its non-camera compartment was still too small, in particular it was too small to handle an A4 / Letter sized object. <p>When I saw the <a href="http://clikelite.com/product/backpacks/new-2014-obscura/">Clik Elite Obscura</a> on sale through <a href="https://www.theclymb.com/">The Clymb</a>, it seemed to address all these concerns. What followed was a year-long saga to actually get one; without going into detail, I can say that I was very impressed by the pre-sales customer service of both The Clymb and Clik Elite. <p>Last week I finally received the pack, and last weekend had a chance to load it up and hike a good six miles (close to ten km) with it. Here are my observations of the backpack. <p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZCnUZDF7tW4/Unl57UoCD9I/AAAAAAAAQlE/ST8hgJRB-MM/s1600/_TVO7989.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZCnUZDF7tW4/Unl57UoCD9I/AAAAAAAAQlE/ST8hgJRB-MM/s320/_TVO7989.jpg" /></a></div>The 2013 model came as black or white-blue, which I rather liked. The 2014 models comes in black or blue-on-blue; unfortunately I'm not at all fond of the new blue-on-blue, and so opted for the black one. The attraction of the non-black options is that it makes the bag look a lot less like a camera bag. Even black, though, Obscura looks a lot less like a camera bag than the Lowepro in general. Of course, with a tripod hanging off of it the point is moot. <p>The carry harness is not height-adjustable, and neither is the Lowepro. Both have well realized shoulder strap length, sternum strap and load lifter adjustments. The Lowepro's sternum strap isn't height adjustable, whereas the Obscura lets you slide it up and down a bit along the shoulder straps. Most importantly, both fit my 5'11" frame great. I had frequently used the Lowepro as an example of a superb harness, but the Obscura is clearly better. The material is an open-cell mesh that is very breathable and comfortable; there's a central air channel (or spine channel) with a mesh cover over a ribbed back plate. <p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vUIkKltrZ9s/Unl9tK9848I/AAAAAAAAQlc/Ra7-OpQgE1w/s1600/_TVO8032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vUIkKltrZ9s/Unl9tK9848I/AAAAAAAAQlc/Ra7-OpQgE1w/s200/_TVO8032.jpg" /></a></div>The hip belt is asymmetric &mdash; one side has a zippered pocket that holds a wallet, keys, GPS or such; the other has a reinforced loop/handle and webbed loops. The loops are of varying sizes, but most will accept the Lowepro SlipLock system, which is great since it allows me to use my existing gear. The shoulder strap loops will also accept SlipLock accessories. Internally the Lowepro has no structural reinforcement whereas the Obscura has an internal aluminum frame. The sturdier padding of the Lowepro keeps it fairly rigid, whereas the lightweight construction of the Obscura benefits from the frame. <p>To carry water with the Lowepro meant either putting a bottle in the side mesh pocket, or putting a bottle in the main compartment. The Obscura has a side mesh pocket as well, but also has a dedicated sleeve for a hydration bladder, complete with a little loop on top for hanging the bladder on. The fit is really tight, though. I had a really hard time getting my partially filled 100 oz / 3 l bladder into the sleeve. The loops on the shoulder straps are too tight to fit a Camelbak valve cover, so routing the hose is another challenge &mdash; for my hike I just let the hose flop out the side. On the other hand, the bladder compartment has a large drain on the bottom, so if the bladder should burst or leak, the water will evacuate through the drain rather than seep into the bag. I'm not sure why this isn't common sense with bladder sleeves. <p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-14StNLKFUOE/UnmAAlgQPLI/AAAAAAAAQlo/Hz2tBHCx2R0/s1600/_TVO8042.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-14StNLKFUOE/UnmAAlgQPLI/AAAAAAAAQlo/Hz2tBHCx2R0/s200/_TVO8042.jpg" /></a></div> The Lowepro side opening has a large zipper pull, and can be opened and closed while the backpack is being worn. It takes a bit of practice and agility but taking the camera out and putting it back into the bag without unbuckling anything is entirely possible. The door faces right, so right-handers have an unfair advantage here. A Nikon D300 with L-bracket attached is about the largest body you can use with the side door. The Nikon D600 pictured is an easy fit. If the camera should be too large for the side opening, the Lowepro allows access to the camera compartment from the rear of the bag. <p> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DdASpNK5tig/Unl7b8icUnI/AAAAAAAAQlQ/Y0FBTf-4GFQ/s1600/_TVO7995.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DdASpNK5tig/Unl7b8icUnI/AAAAAAAAQlQ/Y0FBTf-4GFQ/s200/_TVO7995.jpg" alt="A Nikon D600 with a tripod plate attached barely fits through the Clik Elite Obscura side access panel." /></a></div> In practice, the Obscura doesn't allow access to the camera while it is worn, instead you have to unbuckle the hip and sternum straps and swing the bag partially around. For one, the camera door zipper is small and the opening is tight even with a relatively small D600 without an L-bracket. If you have a camera too big for the side door of the Obscura, you're out of luck: there's no alternative way to access that compartment. The Obscura's door is on the left hand side. <p>The Lowepro camera compartment is pretty rigid, so having the main compartment filled has little impact on the space the camera occupies and vice versa. The Obscura camera compartment is basically just a partially padded internal pouch on the bottom of the bag, so if there's a lot of other load in the backpack, inserting the camera can require a bit more effort as you have to push all the other things aside. The flip side of this is that whatever room the camera isn't taking up on the Obscura is automatically available for other use. <p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AUFt4sybaDY/UnmBWasuokI/AAAAAAAAQl0/6FtEB2Dr4FY/s1600/_TVO8017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AUFt4sybaDY/UnmBWasuokI/AAAAAAAAQl0/6FtEB2Dr4FY/s200/_TVO8017.jpg" /></a></div> An ace in the Obscura's sleeve is the Marsupial system. There's a second padded pocket attached to the inside top back of the bag. It's large enough to hold two 80-200 f2.8 lenses, or one and a body. The beauty is that this keeps the weight close to the optimal spot for carry, and it makes the camera gear easily accessible since it remains close to the top of the main compartment. If there is no camera gear in the pouch, it lies flat and takes up very little space. In the picture it has a 80-200 f2.8 and Nikon SB-600 in its carry case. You can also see the orange internal frame. <p>Another bonus the Obscura offers is a padded laptop sleeve inside the main compartment. It's just a hair too small for a 15" Macbook Pro, but it's fairly deep. There is no good way to carry a laptop on the Lowepro. When traveling, I usually have my laptop in a neoprene sleeve in the outside pocket of the Lowepro, but without tying the sleeve to the bag there's a real danger that it'll fall out, and tying it to the bag is a pain at airport security check points. The Obscura's laptop sleeve is felt lined and can be seen in the above picture just next to the marsupial pouch. <p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JA3ED8_8okg/UnmE9X-6sfI/AAAAAAAAQmI/bVdlXzb2Iig/s1600/_TVO7991.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JA3ED8_8okg/UnmE9X-6sfI/AAAAAAAAQmI/bVdlXzb2Iig/s200/_TVO7991.jpg" /></a></div> The Obscura has an outside top compartment with smaller zippered pockets and a key strap. This functionality is built into the main compartment and camera compartment in the Lowepro. The Obscura's external compartment is much more convenient, and can also be used to hold some additional items, like gloves. <p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-twajIJwKlSg/UnmKHXFBJdI/AAAAAAAAQms/Qta0Qzu12qE/s1600/_TVO8058-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-twajIJwKlSg/UnmKHXFBJdI/AAAAAAAAQms/Qta0Qzu12qE/s200/_TVO8058-2.jpg" /></a></div>There are four attachment loops on the corners of this compartment; the bottom ones can likely take some load, the top ones would stretch the external compartment and its zipper. These are probably best suited for a helmet, jacket, or other relatively light-weight item. <p>It warrants mentioning that in practice accessing the Lowepro's main compartment requires unbuckling the load lifters, this isn't necessary with the Obscura. Accessing the Lowepro's external pocket fully requires unbuckling another set of straps, which I in practice kept forgetting to buckle back up when I picked it up, and ended up with a tripod flopping around until I refastened them. Aside from the hip and sternum belts, there's nothing to unbuckle on the Obscura. <p> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W83yLnwtHRE/UnmFs2rGt2I/AAAAAAAAQmU/Hjj2vikMj-M/s1600/_TVO7977.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W83yLnwtHRE/UnmFs2rGt2I/AAAAAAAAQmU/Hjj2vikMj-M/s200/_TVO7977.jpg" /></a></div>One important aspect for me is the tripod carry system, and the Obscura's is good. It consists of two velcro-fastened openings that run through a second outside compartment. One tripod leg slips in through a hole the top, through the compartment, and out the bottom. There are also two elastic bungees inside the compartment for further fastening the tripod, although with the Gitzo they are wholly redundant. It does its most important job well, and keeps the tripod stable and won't let it flop around on your back as you walk or jog or squeeze around spider webs. <p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CaCcbCQUTOs/UnmElm-7HKI/AAAAAAAAQmA/KM2tcELAYuI/s1600/_TVO7978.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CaCcbCQUTOs/UnmElm-7HKI/AAAAAAAAQmA/KM2tcELAYuI/s200/_TVO7978.jpg" /></a></div> The fit of the two pass-throughs in general is tight for the Gitzo, and might be a problem for a tripod that has bulkier locking mechanisms on the tripod leg. Removing and inserting the tripod takes a bit of work, so it's not just a matter of slipping it in and out; a smaller tripod would of course work better. With the tripod functionality in use the external compartment is somewhat spoken for, and accessing its zipper is tough since the tripod is in the way. Without a tripod the compartment is useful for a light jacket or similar item. <p>Slightly larger than the Lowepro, the Obscura is just under 22" tall on the exterior which should allow it to meet typical airline overhead bin size requirements as well. <h2>Summary</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z-ViF8zWdYc/UnmH6DQBRyI/AAAAAAAAQmg/lxyUha1zDlA/s1600/_TVO8018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z-ViF8zWdYc/UnmH6DQBRyI/AAAAAAAAQmg/lxyUha1zDlA/s200/_TVO8018.jpg" /></a></div> Despite its drawbacks, the Obscura is now my main go-to camera bag for adventure travel. I hiked over six miles with it partially loaded (three lenses and D600 body, my tripod, a Goretex winter coat and a rain coat, hydration bladder, snacks and some other odds and ends, and it was the most comfortable backpack I've worn. <p>The space is vast, though not cavernous. My Mountain Hardwear Viperine 2 tent fits easily &mdash; I could load a body with lens attached, an extra lens, two person tent, sleeping bag, pillow, and mess kit in without too much trouble. At that point, though, not much else would fit. <p>The Lowepro is made from beefy recycled ballistic nylon, the Obscura is light-weight ripstop like your typical hiking backpack. In practice I doubt this makes much difference, unless you plan to test the packs against road rash. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VYWrjlJT11s/UnmLNcaomyI/AAAAAAAAQm4/5t0QEJCRJJc/s1600/_TVO8056.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VYWrjlJT11s/UnmLNcaomyI/AAAAAAAAQm4/5t0QEJCRJJc/s320/_TVO8056.jpg" /></a></div> <h3>Pros</h3><ul><li>Superbly comfortable to carry. <li>Tripod carry system allows stable carrying of a medium-sized tripod with ball head. <li>Hydration bladder pocket. <li>Easily accessed exterior compartments. <li>Great flexible space in the bag, seamlessly adjusting from camera space to general use. </ul> <h3>Cons</h3><ul><li>Tripod carry system is a tight fit for a medium tripod. <li>Side opening for camera compartment is too snug for a lot of cameras and cannot be used while pack is worn. <li>Hydration pocket is tight, hose routing can be challenging. <li>Camera compartment is only lightly padded, and won't offer nearly the kind of protection the Lowepro does. <li>There are only limited external attachment loops. A few at the bottom of the bag, or very top for carrying a tent, sleeping pad or such would greatly add to the utility of the bag. </ul>Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-8677987156768277562012-11-08T11:56:00.001-08:002012-11-08T11:56:11.951-08:00Photography in Space<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/51632896?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0&amp;badge=0" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/51632896">Donald Pettit speaks at Luminance 2012</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/photoshelter">PhotoShelter.com</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-74834678881019544482012-06-13T19:40:00.000-07:002012-06-13T19:55:23.086-07:00Heart Rate Monitor Madness<p>To keep track of my exercise, I've been using <a href="http://www.sports-tracker.com/">Sports Tracker</a> on my <a href="http://www.nokia.com/us-en/products/phone/n8-00/">Nokia N8</a>, and the E-series phones before that. It's free, it works really well, and the interface is quite good. It maps my route, and depending on what kind of exercise I told it I'm doing, it guesstimates the calorie consumption. </p><p>The one thing I didn't have for it, though, was a heart rate monitor. The way Sports Tracker funds itself is at least partially by selling the heart rate monitor hardware. In the past this was annoying to order outside of Europe &mdash; especially the United States &mdash; due to the high exchange rate and shipping costs; though that seems to have changed. Unfortunately they're sold out, with more coming possibly in June. </p><p>No problem, Polar and Zephyr make ones too, so I'll just get one of them. They're bluetooth, so interoperability shouldn't be a problem; specifically I'd seen people say they use the <a href="http://www.zephyr-technology.com/consumer-hxm">Zephyr HxM</a> with Sports Tracker. The added benefit is that it has probably the best belt design of all the ones I've seen, and is sufficiently powerful that it will work up to 30' from the phone; the Polar one specifically appears to not even work if you stash your phone in a Camelbak for mountain biking due to its low power signal, and that's just silly. </p><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sn-duUWj1E8/T9lSlOlr3_I/AAAAAAAAB9c/NNfakSaBRu4/s1600/_TVO6395.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="213" width="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sn-duUWj1E8/T9lSlOlr3_I/AAAAAAAAB9c/NNfakSaBRu4/s320/_TVO6395.jpg" /></a> <h2>Not so Fast!</h2><p>Got the HxM in the mail. Their website is pretty horrid, but the hardware is very nice, and comes packaged professionally. Turned it on, paired it with the N8, done. Started Sports Tracker. Won't find the HRM. A bunch of more research indicates that the Symbian version of Sports Tracker only works with the Sports Tracker branded bluetooth HRM. As far as I can tell, it's a matter of default PIN which you can't change, although I may be wrong. Well, bummer. </p><p>Instead of sending it back, no problem. I have an iPod touch, so I'll just use that instead... except Apple in their typical aggravating fashion only supports a few special bluetooth HRMs, most of the ones you can buy will not work with iPhones/iPods, and many of the ones that do, replicate the built-in bluetooth functionality with an external dongle. Well, bah. </p><p>Allright, is there an app for Symbian that WILL work? Ah, indeed there is! It's called <a href="http://www.endomondo.com/">Endomondo</a>. Their site has a way to send a download link to your phone (doesn't work) and says you can download it from the Nokia Ovi store (nope, not there.) Luckily they give a backup URL that does in fact work. </p> <h2>Endomondo</h2><p>The app isn't half bad. It's a far cry from Sports Tracker, but it lets you customize what's shown in the four fields on the screen, and it gets the heart rate from the Zephyr with no muss or fuss. It won't flip the screen with the phone. The audio coach function appears to not do anything, and it has no provisions for stationary or indoor sports. That being said, it has a neat function where it maps your route, heart rate speed etc. in real time on their web site, if you have friends also using the product (or want to share with the world.) Unfortunately, unlike Sports Tracker, the sharing to social media function is fairly useless if you want to share anything but your map. It also doesn't even try to guess calories without GPS input, and the web page could use some serious UI design help. </p><p>What differentiates Endomondo from Sports Tracker is also the social aspect; you get much more of a feeling that the idea is that you share and interact on their site; they have discussion forums, friends can send you messages to your workout app, etc. For me, currently, that unfortunately isn't too useful, and somewhat ironic, considering the lackluster integration with Facebook / Google+. </p><p>Endomondo has also, as per their comments in the discussion forums, made the decision to not support the Symbian version due to the ramping down of Symbian by Nokia. While I can't blame them for the business decision, the app is as it is, and there won't be any feature updates, bug fixes, or support if a future OS update breaks it. </p><p>A remaining annoyance with Endomondo is that it doesn't disable the screen saver. So, using it on an elliptical or such, you have to unlock the phone every so many minutes in order to continue to see the screen. Not as big of a deal outdoors where you likely fish the phone out of a pocket, unlock, look at it, lock it and slip it back into the pocket. </p> <h2>Android to the Rescue</h2><p>...or not. Partly to solve my desire to have the HRM display up while doing exercise on my elliptical, and partly because I wanted to see what Android devices are like, and some other rationalizations, I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. Endomondo, SportsTracker (turns out there are two different products with the same name!) Zephyr Heart Rate... plenty of programs to choose from with official support for my exact heart rate monitor. Pair the belt to the tablet, no problem. Start the application. Hm. Nothing. Settings, HRM. Search. Fail. </p><p>The root cause isn't entirely clear, but it appears that Samsung has taken some shortcuts with their Bluetooth stack, and as a result many simpler Bluetooth devices will in fact not work with many Samsung tablets and phones. Also, turns out SportsTracker (the one from Nokia) doesn't support the Zephyr HRM on Android either, although they do support the Polar one in addition to their custom HRM. </p> <h2>In Conclusion</h2><p>The I like the Zephyr HxM. It's rechargeable with a little USB dock, so power sources are abundant. The strap is machine washable, the contact pads are some kind of metallic fabric that's perfectly soft and nice against the skin. The unit looks pretty sharp and is light, and when it works, it just works; I've yet to have it flake out in any sense. It snaps into the belt or the dock using normal clothes-style snap buttons, so it's easy to turn off (just unsnap it) when not in use. </p> <p>However, I'm rather disappointed at the lack of interoperability: Almost nothing works with Apple devices; almost nothing works with Symbian. If you want to use HRMs with your phone, your best bet is to have an Android phone. And if you get an Android device, you have to find one with a non-broken Bluetooth stack. This may well be the deciding factor for when I look at upgrading my N8; looks like I'll be going the Android route, depending on how well I like the OS in general after having lived with the tablet for a while. </p>Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-79390242493927880772011-10-09T13:45:00.000-07:002011-10-09T13:45:11.999-07:00E-ReaderFor quite a while now I've been scandalizing my more literate friends by not having switched to an electronic form of reading books. As I was offered some e-books, however, I figured I might as well break down and see if I'd like it. <p>I've been very dubious about the ergonomics of e-readers, specifically the feel of them in the hand, and the experience of all the flashing of e-ink when turning pages, and managing books on the computer, and the very limited features as far as layout goes. I've also been loathe &mdash; and still am &mdash; to get a Kindle. Amazon's whispernet, ease of buying and browsing books, and offering a properly implemented cloud for storage appeal to me greatly, but their insistence on their own proprietary format, DRM, and lack of support of third-party books pretty much nullifies all that. Instead I went on Ebay and got a "cheap" Sony PRS-300 reader. <p>The PRS-300 is one of Sony's "Pocket edition" ones, meaning it has a 5" screen instead of the 6" one commonly found on Kindles, Kobo's, Sony's other models, etc. On the down side, it requires tethering via mini-USB for most anything, as it has no expansion slots or wireless. You do not, however, lose resolution, as the screen crams the same number of pixels than the larger readers do (and e-ink has a much higher media resolution than the pixel count). <p>The Sony reader also comes with software that is in typical Sony fashion absolutely horrible malware. On the upside, the Sony readers are well supported by <a href="http://calibre-ebook.com/">Calibre</a>, so I didn't even bother with the bundled software. The way I figure, if I can't get a DRM-free book in electronic format, I can just buy one in paper form instead. <p>I've now read about a book and a half on it, and my feelings are mixed. The page turning has become a non-issue, and is not bothering me at all. The ergonomics of the Sony are a bit dubious, but on the other hand its small size makes it pretty neatly manageable. The biggest gripe I have is about the quality of text. The e-ink advertising claims that the display has more contrast than a paperback, but to my eyes this isn't true, though it's close. The smallest font ends up being so ragged looking that I never use it, and even the medium one does irritate me somewhat, not only in the appearance of the font, but also in layout. Some of this may have to do with having pixel-peeped at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX">LaTeX</a> output throughout my college career. Glare is incredibly well controlled, and a non-issue; aside from the quality of text and perhaps the contrast, it really is a match of paper, at least visually. The texture, feel, smell, and sound of paper, of course, are missing. <p>It seems to me that with e-book readers history is repeating itself. Just like with HTML, the first noble attempt was to describe the content of the language; "This is a header", "This is a quote", "This should be emphasized" and so forth, and leave the details of what that means to the end device &mdash; since there was no way of knowing the end device's resolution, color, or even if it was a visual display at all, or a braille terminal or audio reader. Of course, this did not satisfy content producers who wanted control over their material, forcing everyone to enjoy that blinking headline. So, inherently, in an e-book you lose the art of typography and layout that may have been presented in a paper format, but conversely the readers do not appear to be sufficiently smart to format text in a particularly pleasing way themselves. <p>On the upside, you can have a pile of books in the device, instead of cluttering up your room, and managing your library with something like Calibre is nice and powerful. Also, you can enjoy instant gratification, and get the next installment in a series in a matter of minutes or seconds, rather than waiting a few days for the mail (or making a trip to one of those elusive brick-and-mortar stores that likely won't have what you want on their shelves anyways.) <p>In short, then, I'm still on the fence. Perhaps, in a few years the technology has either advanced sufficiently, or obtaining books in a reasonable format has become easier and cheaper, making it worthwhile. Alternatively, there's certainly room for a visionary to produce a reader that has the capability of producing superior text layout and a compelling tactile experience, much like Fuji did with it's X100 camera. Until then, I'll use my Sony when I can or have to, and keep dealing with physical books.Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-22567193474760961352011-01-03T19:54:00.000-08:002011-01-03T19:55:18.012-08:00Microsoft Image Composite EditorSince the abilities of a lot of existing bitmap formats aren't well suited for stupidly huge panoramas/gigapixel images or high dynamic range composites with 48-bit color depths, there's been development of new formats that pack better than jpeg, support deeper and wider color, and smarter tiling. As part of this Microsoft Research has released a really neat and free tool, <a href="http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ICE/">Microsoft Image Composite Editor</a> that allows you to output to some of these formats. Bottom line is that it does panorama stitching really well, and for free.<br /><br />Since the resulting pictures were kind of huge, I uploaded two panoramas in the HD Photo, a.k.a. JPEG XR format. The viewer requires Silverlight.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.shadowfantasy.com/panoramas/eaglelake/eaglelake.html">Composite of Eagle Lage</a> near Tahoe, California.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.shadowfantasy.com/panoramas/emeraldbay/emeraldbay.html">Composite of Emerald Bay</a> at Lake Tahoe, California.<br /><br />Below a plain old Flickr version:<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/varjohaltia/5322705654/" title="Emerald Bay by Varjohaltia, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5049/5322705654_94a2106e3b.jpg" width="500" height="169" alt="Emerald Bay" /></a>Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-76725635660215383402010-12-21T06:42:00.001-08:002010-12-21T07:03:07.139-08:00Networking Tidbit of the Day - Self-Defending NetworksThis following presumes a bit of knowledge of networking, including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Host_Configuration_Protocol">DHCP</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address">MAC Addresses</a> (watch the capitalization and don't confuse with Apple Macs, relevant later), and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_switch">Ethernet switching</a>.<br /><br />Some years back Cisco Systems kept running these kind of annoying ads with the CEO's daughter doing bad stuff on the network and the network preventing damage from happening. While very hand-wavy and low on details, there has in fact been a push over the past decade to add more intelligence towards the edge of the network to sanity-check what's going on and prevent some malicious activity or just malfunctions from affecting other users.<br /><br />In that vein, one of the shiny features that Ethernet switch vendors started to offer a few years back is called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DHCP_snooping">DHCP Snooping</a>. The basic idea is that the Ethernet switch sees when a computer boots up and requests an IP address, then keeps track of the response, and makes sure the computer on a given port only uses the IP address it's supposed to have. Additional benefits come from having a mapping between a physical switchport and IP address without having to correlate various other tables.<br /><br />It also catches a couple of other oddities, as it happens, as evidenced by the logs this morning:<br /><blockquote><br />Dec 21 09:40:02 EST: %DHCP_SNOOPING-5-DHCP_SNOOPING_MATCH_MAC_FAIL: DHCP_SNOOPING drop message because the chaddr doesn't match source mac, message type: DHCPREQUEST, chaddr: 0025.4b8e.xxxx, MAC sa: 0025.4bab.yyyy</blockquote><br /><br />Ugly gobbledygook, right? What it means is that the switch saw a DHCP request come in for a MAC (hardware) address (chaddr) different from the address that sent it (MAC sa). The idea behind the block is that there are very few legitimate reasons why one computer should act as a representative for another; the computer wanting an IP address should ask for it itself. <br /><br />And, indeed, <a href="http://www.coffer.com/mac_find/">looking up the first six digits from those MAC addresses</a> reveals that the computer in question is an Apple, which explains what's going on (if you happen to know how some Macs do their networking.) The machine is a laptop, which has a wireless network interface (Airport) with one MAC address and a wired interface with another MAC address. The Apple in question tries to get addresses for both of its interfaces, both the wireless and wired, and the way Steve Jobs has decided this should work is to send any requests like this out all of the the interfaces; the wired interface requests IP addresses both for itself and the Airport, and the Airport requests addresses both for itself and the wired interface. This makes sense in a home or small business where all networks are the same segment, but it breaks badly in an enterprise where this is not the case.<br /><br />The Ethernet switch sees the wired interface send out a request for an address for the wireless interface, and refuses to forward this request, which from our point of view is the right thing to do, because if the Airport in the laptop manages to get an address from the wired network, it won't work, and then an unhappy faculty/student/staff will be calling the helpdesk.Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-2859727367629778392010-05-17T15:15:00.000-07:002010-05-17T15:35:39.693-07:00IP Addressing Horror StoriesIn this post I'll be sharing some of the most bizarre ways to configure network devices. These are all devices I've personally encountered and had to figure out.<br /><h3>Phaser 360 Printer</h3><br />The way you configure almost anything on this printer is by using PostScript templates that are provided on a floppy. You take the template, edit the variables within the PostScript file with a text editor, save the file, and "print" it to the printer. This includes things such as the IP address.<br /><a href="http://www.office.xerox.com/userdoc/PShare4/htmlnet/intro8.htm">Here is part of the Xerox Documentation</a> &mdash; scroll to the utility files section.<br /><br /><h3>Brother Wireless Printer HL-2170W</h3><br />Admittedly, this printer will also work when plugged in to a network, but in the remote office I was sent to to install this, there was no ethernet connection to use, and I had few tools with me. The way to go about the configuration was to reset the printer, set a laptop to Ad-Hoc wireless mode on the printer's wireless channel, connect to the printer, configure it with the Brother utility disk, restart the printer and hope the settings were right, because if they weren't you had to reset the printer again, change the laptop wireless settings again, and start over.<br /><br /><h3>Axis Cameras, Ethernet to Serial Converters, Signage Devices...</h3><br />Ah, the joys of reverse ARP. Instead of having the device DHCP an address like any sane piece of embedded hardware, you have to manually hard code an ARP entry into a computer on the same subnet as the devices. You then telnet/ping/whatever the device, which causes an Ethernet frame with the device's MAC address and its intended IP address to be broadcast to the network. The device will (hopefully!) see this Ethernet frame, learns its IP address from it, and be on it's merry way.Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-5537577960173956502010-03-19T16:42:00.000-07:002010-03-19T17:19:40.307-07:00Macs in the EnterpriseActually, this is about more than just Macs in the enterprise. I recently had a rather good conversation about Apple taking over computing in the enterprise. It just goes to show how old I've become that I find myself justifying the existence of big, evil IT.<br /><br />Dell, HP etc. have business lines of PCs &mdash; they tend to be the less-than-exciting computers that seem to carry a price premium over what an enterprising geek could make themselves or what you could buy off a special from the same vendors. However, they will guarantee that the hardware won't change, they will guarantee that the exact models will be available for a certain length of time &mdash; an office can standardize on a single model and can still buy the same model for the new hire a year later &mdash; and you know when the model will be discontinued and new models introduced so you can plan refresh cycles accordingly. Apple is rather lousy at this, as are other vendors targeting consumer markets where agility in introducing new gizmos matters more. That, and the vendor / consultant / var / third party partnerships are another issue, but they're boring and straightforward.<br /><br />There is then the argument that Apple is less friendly to centralized IT as far as management tools available. In the Windows world, a well run IT shop can have more or less complete control over computers &mdash; where they are, what their service tags, serial numbers, installed software, patch levels, hardware specs etc. are, when they turn on, when they go sleep, whether screens will lock upon screensaver, who has what rights and so forth. Bringing up things that matter to centralized IT is often met by, "You can do what with a Mac too." And it may well be true. <br /><br />But then there is the matter of the less-tangible aspects of centralized IT, analogous to institutional or bureaucratic inertia. An enterprise may have, say, a system that keeps track of inventory, another that does backups and a third that pushes patches to computers. To switch to Macs, all three might have to be replaced &mdash; and that's the easy part, you can measure how much money that costs, and estimate how much might be saved by the new computers. However, what's much harder to gauge is how much it will take not only to retrain the IT administrators with the new tools, but <b>how long it will take them to learn how to properly use them</b>. <br /><br />Specifically, chances are that the IT organization has spent a years figuring out which features work, which don't work, which annoy users, which annoy admins and so forth. They have an idea how long it will take to do a certain operation. They know how to troubleshoot issues. They know how to write scripts to leverage existing systems. The way the IT organization is structured, the forms it has, the documentation it does, all these things may be affected. Of course, bureaucracy shouldn't hinder productive activity, but in reality there are trade-offs. Of course, the extra work for IT may result in a more productive workforce that offsets the costs, and the new ways of doing things may be better than the old ones, and a chance to rethink the way things are done and ditch historic baggage &mdash; as long as people are aware of the implications on a human, organization and process level.<br /><br />Another example; an organization has a network consisting of equipment from vendor X. Vendor Y sells equipment that is just as good, and cheaper. However, the organization has a decade's worth of experience with vendor X, and many custom scripts and programs that work with X but not Y. They all may be little issues, but taken as a whole it will take years to get back to the same operational effectiveness with vendor Y than the organization had with vendor X to begin with. If the depth of intangible changes aren't communicated up the management structure, it may rather surprise the CIO why a simple vendor switch is causing so much heartburn, or not taking place as fast as expected.Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-84409024821073194592010-01-04T18:47:00.000-08:002010-01-04T19:26:46.468-08:00AT&T vs. Verizon WirelessTo set the record straight, thanks my growing annoyance with all those tit for tat commercials:<br /><br />What Verizon shows as AT&T's lacking high speed 3G coverage is accurate. The really sparse map Verizon shows is not AT&T wireless coverage (nor does Verizon claim so), just the areas in which AT&T actually offers 3G data speeds. AT&T's claim that they cover 97% of the US population is also accurate -- they don't cover 97% of the US land mass, just 97% of the population living in the US -- and with no guarantees about data speeds.<br /><br />The argument as to which one has better 3G is clearly impossible to settle. Fundamentally AT&T has higher possible speeds, but Verizon has better coverage.Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-12091664779258352482009-12-30T18:39:00.000-08:002009-12-30T20:45:38.391-08:00Flashlight Insanity<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mT9bjk0OAuY/SzwTatdGg4I/AAAAAAAAAhI/CjCyePL3DwQ/s1600-h/_3006039.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin: 0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mT9bjk0OAuY/SzwTatdGg4I/AAAAAAAAAhI/CjCyePL3DwQ/s320/_3006039.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5421229401046418306" /></a><h3>Flashlights</h3><p>You press, twist, or slide a switch and light comes out. How complicated can this be? If you head over to <a href="http://candlepowerforums.com/">Candlepower Forums</a>, you can begin to get an idea. In this article I'll run through a brief introduction of flashlight madness, culminating in the Christmas present I got myself, the <a href="http://www.liteflux.com/english/product_detail.php?act=1&amp;index=26">LiteFlux LF2XT</a>.</p><h3>Flashlight Fascination</h3><p>Much like cars, guns, toy trains and so forth, flashlights fascinate many people (mostly geeky guys, it seems.) I'm not sure where the fascination comes from, but in my case it goes back as far as I can remember. Perhaps there's something primal about having the power of light in your grasp? As fascinations go, though, flashlights tend to be a rather practical outlet of perfectionist energy.</p><h3>Burn a Bulb or Love the LED?</h3><p>Flashlights used to have simple incandescent bulbs, like those Edison came up with -- a metal filament glowing in a protective gas. Gradual improvements followed; halogen, xenon, increasingly high pressures allowing for brighter and whiter light, ways to protect the filament from breaking due to bumps against the light etc. Basically, the more you paid, the fancier of a bulb you got.</p><p>What has lately changed the game are two developments -- you can now get <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas-discharge_lamp#High-intensity_discharge_lamps">High Intensity Discharge</a> lights, just like the headlights in luxury cars, in a form factor that qualifies as a flashlight. These are expensive and relatively large, and I shan't discuss them. The second new technology is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_emitting_diode">Light Emitting Diode</a>, LED for short. While LEDs and LEDs in portable lighting aren't new, the advent of 1, 3 and 5 watt Luxeon, Cree, etc. LEDs has totally changed the playing field -- you can get more light out of an LED than you could out of a high-end bulb just a few years back -- and it will run several times longer and never burns out. LEDs can also produce whiter light, and feature instant on and instant off. They can also be dimmed without affecting the color temperature (for practical purposes.)</p><h3>Fancy Flashlights</h3><p>So, what can we do to overengineer a flashlight? I used to be happy with my Underwater Kinetics lights -- they had nice bright, white light, were waterproof, and reliable. Then my roommate at the time got me a <a href="http://www.surefire.com/Z2">SureFire Z2</a>, and it went downhill from there. You can see my Z2 in the picture above; it's the topmost, biggest flashlight. The SureFire lights are exorbitantly expensive, but they have to be held and tried to be believed. The light is smooth, without rings or lopsided patterns; the light is bright, and the construction is literally bomb-proof (as per a special operations soldier I spoke to.) I would not hesitate to drive over my Z2 and expect it to keep working. I can drive nails with the thing.</p><p>To put the brightness in perspective, a good, traditional 2D flashlight (Maglite) produces less than 37 lumens. Out of the box the Z2 produced 60 lumens, and I upgraded the lamp to produce 120 lumens. A flashlight the fraction of the size of a Maglite produces over three times as much light!</p><p>As mentioned, you can replace the lamp module, and there are a large number of accessories available; color filters, battery cases, replacement switches etc. You can in fact upgrade your old light with a purpose built LED module, to keep with the times. But it wasn't until I discovered <a href="http://candlepowerforums.com/">Candlepower Forums</a> that I realized that there is competition. Even so, SureFires are a cornerstone of high-end flashlights, and a "standard" of sorts -- you can buy third party components that are interchangeable with the Surefire components and vice versa. In fact, there are tens, if not hundreds of third-party lamp modules you can buy for your Surefire, as well as sapphire glass, anti-reflective coated glass, crenelated bezels, and pretty much anything you can possibly think of.</p><h4>Fantastic Features</h4><p>Aside from other LED lights of equal brightness to the Surefires, the competition offers features. Since the LEDs are driven by relatively fancy electronics, adding some more logic didn't take much of a leap. Consequently, you end up with lights that have several power levels, strobe modes etc. They come in all kinds of sizes, with various kinds of user interfaces; some you twist, some you press, etc. The variety is bewildering. The lights also differ between their beam pattern -- how wide is the angle of light. A small angle gives you a pencil beam that will light up objects far away, but doesn't give much coverage. A large angle gives you a flood of light, covering a lot of area, but won't reach as far. </p><p>The middle light in the picture above is a 1 CR123 <a href="http://www.nitecore.com/products/ex10/">Nitecore SmartPD EX10</a>. It's as bright as my stock Surefire was in about a quarter of the size, and has variable brightness. This is what has been in my pocket for a while, for work and walks at night, but will now be replaced by the LF2XT, which I'll cover in a bit. Other brands worth looking at for nifty little lights are <a href="http://www.4sevens.com/">4Sevens</a>, <a href="http://www.fenixlight.com">Fenix</a>, <a href="http://www.streamlight.com/">Streamlight</a> and <a href="http://www.novatac.com/products.html">Novatac</a> to mention but a few.</p><h4>Batteries Included</h4><p>Another aspect you might notice in regards to "tactical" or otherwise fancy flashlights is their power source. Instead of AA or D cells, they typically use CR123 lithium cells. They're ludicrously expensive if bought locally, but can be had at about $1.50 a piece mail order. Like AA lithium batteries, they pack a lot of power for their size, they are fairly impervious to temperatures and they have a shelf life of a decade or more and don't go bad even if partially used. More recently people have started to use rechargeable batteries either in the CR123 form factor, or in multiples and fractions thereof, for example 1.5 CR123 lengths or 2 CR123 lengths. These rechargeables are Lithium-Ion, much like modern laptop batteries and require completely different chargers than your normal rechargeable AAs. They aren't mainstream because the voltage you get out of a rechargeable version of a CR123 is significantly different from the voltage of a regular battery -- but since the fancy flashlights use advanced regulating electronics anyhow, they don't really care what voltage you feed them. In fact, you can have one, two and three cell flashlights share the same bulb assembly; it just converts the voltage automatically.</p><h3>The Liteflux LF2XT</h3><p>What makes my little AAA powered flashlight (on the bottom in the picture above, smallest of the three) so insane is not its brightness. It's pretty bright for a tiny AAA light, but not enough to really stand out. No, what makes this light complete lunacy is the user interface. The flashlight has one binary button. That's it. Yet, with just one button to enter commands, a clever engineer from Taiwan has managed to create a state machine interfaces that consumes <a href="http://www.liteflux.com/english/download/LF2XT%20flowchart.pdf">three pages in flow chart format</a>.</p><p>For starters, the light has a "simple" mode and a "complex" mode, with normal or tactical submodes under each. In the complex mode, the light has five selectable output profiles. By default these were 50% brightness, 15% brightness, 1% brightness, 50% beacon and 15% SOS morse mode. But this, of course is horribly restrictive -- so, the user can select how many output profiles they want to activate, and they can change each of these profiles to suit their taste. You can pick between a regular "always on" light, a strobe, a beacon (short blinks separated by relatively long periods of off) and SOS. But of course, you also need to be able to adjust the brightness of each mode. And, while we're at it, you can customize the frequency of the strobe and beacon modes. The light also will measure battery voltage, and indicate this with a number of blinks equal to the voltage (blink, pause, blink, blink, blink being 1.3 volts, for example.) It lets you also query its current brightness level using the same logic. Further customization can be done by determining whether the light turns off automatically after three minutes, whether it remembers the profile it was when you turned it off, whether it should shut down at low battery voltages to prevent you from discharging a rechargeable battery too far, and a few other things. And lest this all is too simple, there are shortcuts for random strobe and full power.</p><p>How does this work in practice? For example, to turn on the light, I tap the button. While the light is on, if I press and hold, it overrides whatever output profile the light is in and turns on full power for as long as I hold the button. If I tap once, then hold, it goes into strobe mode for as long as I keep the button depressed.</p><p>To program, when the light is on, I tap the button three times. From there, one tap increases brightness of the current profile, two reduces brightness, triple tap exits, triple-tap plus hold exits and saves new settings. Eight taps and a hold will toggle whether the light has an automatic timeout or not, and indicates its current state with either a double or single blink. Other functions are accessed and changed with similar logic. The flow chart is pretty much a necessity.</p><p>...needless to mention there are now custom third-party firmware updates available for people to whom this is too restrictive.</p>Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-46979832675800086672009-11-27T15:43:00.000-08:002009-11-27T17:00:31.034-08:00Eagle Creek ORV Trunk 22 Review<h2>Introduction</h2>In anticipation of my trip to Japan next year, I was confronted with the need to get luggage. I have always been a proponent of picking up cheap suitcases from outlet stores, but on the last few trips kept breaking on me. Further, in this case I needed to restrict myself to something that would make it as carry-on luggage.<div>Turning to the Internet was, as usual, both a curse and a blessing. There are people way too obsessive about luggage lurking about, and it's quite easy to get caught up in the search for perfection. <a href="http://www.flyertalk.com/">Flyertalk.com</a> turned out to be an excellent resource, and had me considering the relative benefits of hard-shell, soft-shell, duffle, spinner, wheeled, shoulder-carry and other kinds of options.</div><h2>Duffel to the Rescue</h2><div>I opted for a wheeled duffel -- the wheels and handle mechanism add weight and take up space, but since I will be traversing a fair distance by foot and public transit, the idea of not having to carry all the weight was a winner. Further, I am taking a camera backpack with me, so I cannot conveniently carry anything on my back or shoulder -- otherwise, a convertible backpack probably would be the way to go. A duffel generally has the best weight-to-volume ratio, as it only has fabric instead of a rigid structure to add to the bulk. It also means that the bag is generally squishy, which may end up being good for actually fitting it into an overhead bin. The downside of course is that if I do end up having to check the bag, the contents aren't as well protected as they would be within a hard or even semi-rigid shell. Since I generally only intend to carry clothing and similar items, this is an acceptable trade off. As added protection against damage if checked, the particular model I settled for has a no questions asked warranty; the manufacturer will repair or replace the bag even due to airline inflicted damage, with no complicated legalese requiring paperwork or attempts to get the airline to pay up first.</div><h2>Eagle Creek ORV Trunk 22</h2><div><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mT9bjk0OAuY/SxBkQDmY91I/AAAAAAAAAYQ/o_2W7jMuC60/s320/_3005948.jpg" border="0" alt="" style="clear:both;float:left; margin:0px 10px 10px 0;" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; "><div></div></span><br />Today the bag arrived, an Eagle Creek ORV Trunk 22 in palm green. Eagle Creek has a cheaper, lighter model not covered by their comprehensive warranty, and a bit simpler in construction. I decided that the warranty was worth the extra cost, and I also gained cinch straps and handles on every side of the bag for easy hauling. There are two exterior pockets and one main compartment with an integral shoe bag. The duffel is geared towards adventure travel, but fit my needs otherwise. It's marketed as "lightweight" and it comes in at 7 pounds 8 ounces, or 3.4 kg which does in fact make it lighter than most carryon luggage of the same size -- though you can get below 6 pounds with other wheeled models if this is your top concern.<br /></div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mT9bjk0OAuY/SxBrUr77XEI/AAAAAAAAAYY/6feakL_XLRA/s1600/_3005950.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mT9bjk0OAuY/SxBrUr77XEI/AAAAAAAAAYY/6feakL_XLRA/s320/_3005950.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408941155607600194" /></a>The topmost of the exterior compart­ments has a mesh pocket, clip, and little organi­zational inside sleeve. The bottom compartment is plain without any interior features. The top compartment measures about 10" by 5.5", the opening being half an inch smaller. The bottom compartment measures about 10" by 8". Both compartments are roughly rectangular, so the size remains uniform troughout. Both have a depth of about 1", but being fabric they'll adjust. It's obvious by looking at them, and confirmed by user comments on the forums, that putting much of anything into these pockets will make the bag bigger than the carry-on size. All of the exterior zippers have overlapping holes and can be locked with a small padlock or similar device. I intend to use zip-ties if the bag has to be checked since slicing it open seems like a trivial way to circumvent an actual lock and the nylon ties should do a good enough job at making sure the zippers do not accidentally get undone.<br /><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mT9bjk0OAuY/SxBtDTDp-JI/AAAAAAAAAYo/aBYkZ2taR6g/s1600/_3005957.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mT9bjk0OAuY/SxBtDTDp-JI/AAAAAAAAAYo/aBYkZ2taR6g/s320/_3005957.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408943055894608018" /></a>Inside, the bag is wide open. There is a shoe compart&shy;ment that takes up about half of the interior compart&shy;ment, but since it is made of fabric you can just push it against the bottom of the bag. I'd rather not bother with it, but it is made of a thicker, vinyl-like material and would probably do a good job of isolating dirty footwear from the rest of the contents. The lid has a single mesh pocket along its entire length, and that is it for the interior features. There are no straps. Both the top and the bottom of the lining have zippers on three sides, allowing you access to the inside of the lining. Otherwise, their purpose seems obscure, as they don't allow you to remove the shoe compartment, nor rearrange the interior in any way.<div><br /></div><div>Please see the <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/toivo.voll/EagleCreekORVTrunk22?feat=directlink">gallery </a>for more detailed shots and nitty-gritty detail.</div><div><h2>In Conclusion</h2>The construction of the bag seems excellent, and from the first moment of removing it from the box any doubts that it would be up for the job were gone. The proof will lie in the actual trip; my next challenge is fitting two-and-a-half week's worth of clothing and other necessities into the bag. Despite its relatively light weight, the fabrics seem incredibly tough. If your needs in luggage are similar to mine, I highly recommend a look at the Eagle Creek ORV Trunk 22.</div>Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-6510402991388473892009-09-20T14:38:00.000-07:002009-09-20T16:12:34.487-07:00Physicists do it with SymbolsOne of the first rules we were always taught when I studied physics, in regards to equations, was to do all the math to the final form with the relevant symbolic representation, and only at the last step to actually use numbers to obtain the final result. <br /><br />The reason for this is twofold -- first, you end up with a form of the equations you're dealing with you can use for various values, and second, you skip rounding errors.<br /><br />Case in point: My Macroeconomics homework with three values for consumer price index baskets: $124 (baseline), $153 and $161.<br /><br />First problem: calculate the CPIs, no decimals. The results are 100, 123 and 130. Clear as mud.<br /><br />Second problem: calculate inflation between the last two. (130-123)/123 = 5.7%. Except I was doing the math in Excel, and had set it to only display the number of digits required in the answer. It displayed (130-123)/123 = 5.2%. Huh?<br /><br />Well, Excel isn't a physicist, but it is a computer program so it carries a fair bit of precision. Though it <em>displayed</em> the rounded values, it actually did all the calculations with full precision, which turns out to be more like (1.298387097...-1.233870968...)/1.233870968... = 5.2288... %<br /><br />I'm not convinced this homework really taught me what the professor thought it would.Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-4267504921435115982009-08-12T17:31:00.000-07:002009-08-12T17:51:21.735-07:00Why Twitter is not for MeA lot of my friends are on Twitter. Many are extremely happy with it, and find that it fills a need in their social communication arsenal. The blogosphere and social media evangelists as well as startups are also a-buzz about it, and while some of it is eagerness to jump on a bandwagon without knowing where it's going, who they're traveling with or whether the wheels will fall off, there has to be some real value and utility to the system.<br />However, from the get go I had trouble figuring out what it would be good for. A friend convinced me that it'd be perfect for emergency situations, such as hurricanes, since one SMS could be used to notify a lot of people, and I consequently signed up. I've given it a try, but I have been unable to make it work for me. I've pondered why and discussed this with people, and here are my conclusions so far.<br /><br /><h2>It Replicates Existing Functionality</h2><br />I used to keep track of what friends are doing on LiveJournal. They'd post their travels, plans for parties, reviews of books they'd read, shared nifty links and so forth. This works quite well, in my view, and is still my primary social channel, although it is obvious that a lot of my friends have migrated away from it.<br /><br />LiveJournal, BlogSpot, Myspace (yuck!), Flickr and Facebook, among others, allow for updates via SMS, MMS or mobile browsers. If I see something interesting while I'm out and about, and I can even upload pictures and video if I so desire.<br /><br />Artists, news outlets, and other similar content creators have RSS and Atom feeds. I can subscribe to them on LJ, on my mobile phone, with Outlook, with Google... Any number of ways I can conveniently see a headline-format update from any number of sources I want.<br /><br /><h2>It Annoys Me</h2><br />I get perhaps one social SMS every week or so, including "I'm coming home, let's move cars"-type messages. Those that I do get I generally don't mind. Things such as planning weekday lunches, movies and whatnot happens via LJ, email or AIM. The majority of SMS messages I get are work-related pages: something broke. Consequently, whenever I get one, I have to look at it as soon as possible; when driving, eating, in the movies, in class, doesn't matter. Pull over, excuse myself, check the phone with a mental preparation for having to drop what I'm doing and find a computer or drive to work. The result of this is that I do not want to stop a conversation or slip out of a meeting or make a professor mad to find out that my friend is having a delicious sandwich. Which leads me to...<br /><br /><h2>No Content Separation</h2><br />Some of my friends plan social activities through Twitter. If you do not check your SMS, you don't know they're going to the movies and want company, or want to do lunch. I still don't want to enable SMS notifications, though, because most of the messages would still be things I am not really interested in being alerted to -- and there's no way to filter this.<br />Whenever people post links on Twitter (and now photos and videos, which really is replication of perfectly good existing functionality) they tend to use a URL shortening -- and obfuscation -- service. Hence, if I follow the links, I end up seeing every old Internet Meme a dozen times, since there's no way to tell what you're clicking on. The security folly of this is left as an exercise for the reader.<br />There's also no proper way to group my own updates. I don't want the world to know what I'm up to, so I have to make my feed private. I now can not link it to Facebook, LJ, or any RSS aggregator. I also cannot select which people see which posts, unlike most other social media; I have many friends, some of which might be offended by sexual content, for example -- and there are things I want to share with some people but not others.<br /><br /><h2>In Conclusion</h2><br />If all my friends were on Twitter and used SMS notifications, it would be an interesting way to alert everyone with one message for really important stuff. As is, for my use it does nothing (as I can't know who will get a tweet and who will not) that my existing social networking services do not already do, and the existing services do everything better.Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-7965277946724609492009-07-23T16:21:00.000-07:002009-07-23T16:46:07.997-07:00Water Bottles<h2>Introduction</h2><br />Whenever I think I'm over the worst in my perfectionist streaks, something pops up to correct me. The latest reminder was my quest for a decent reusable water bottle.<br /><br />Yes, sounds kind of silly, I admit, but hear me out. <br /><br />Reusable water bottles are cheap, and can be found everywhere. However, past that it gets complicated. Steel, aluminum, plastic, or some other material? BPA free? Insulated? How large? Large opening for ice and easy cleaning? What kind of lid? Carry straps/attachments/pouches? The list goes on. A friend of mine obtained a really neat one for her trip to Japan, and this caused me to wake up to the fact that not all water bottles were created equal; there really is room for innovation in something that simple.<br /><br />What I present below are not the ultimate products or ones that necessarily fit every need. They are, however, the bottles I've found to be sufficiently superior to warrant seeking them out amongst the sea of bottles being offered.<br /><br /><h2>The Recommendations</h2><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thermos-Nissan-Intak-Hydration-Bottle/dp/B001EGGQB6">Thermos Intak Hydration Bottle</a>. A fairly basic plastic bottle, made of some BPA free substance. Comes in a few colors. I don't see any use for the "intake meter" which is just a ring you can spin around, and I'm not too fond of the weird shape of the bottle. However, the lid has nice silicone seals and is completely waterproof, so you can toss it into your bag and not worry about it leaking. It has a chug-style spout which makes drinking really easy; even if you're working out or in otherwise bumpy conditions. The cover can be locked in place with a metal clasp; when that clasp is open, the basic lock still feels plenty reliable, but one button press pops the cover open. There's a little rubber spring that causes the cover to open all the way, so the bottle is a joy to use if you only have one hand free, for example when biking or kayaking. It also has an integral ring that you can use to strap it to a carabiner or such. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/NALGENE-Tritan-OTG-BPA-Free-Bottle/dp/B001NCDE70">Nalgene</a> makes a somewhat similar bottle with a chug spout, but it doesn't have the seals or a solid enough closure mechanism for me to risk putting it in a bag.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thermos-Nissan-Stainless-Hydration-18-Ounce/dp/B000FJ9DOK">Thermos Stainless Steel Bottle</a>. The superior design of the previous bottle has made it to this one as well. However, the material is stainless steel, and it's an actual insulated double-wall bottle. It is also of a smaller capacity than the plastic version.<br /><br />And there you have it. My recommendations for staying hydrated, when reusing an old juice bottle just won't do, and the lid of the free one you got at a trade show finally drove you batty. Amazon carries these, but Target does as well, for the same price. I've seen the plastic one at Walgreen's once, but otherwise they're not too common.Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-89561702541426703622009-07-21T17:46:00.000-07:002009-07-21T18:21:05.762-07:00Motorola S705 Soundpilot and Getting the Beat out of the Nokia E71<h2>The Problem</h2><br />Since the <a href="http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/devices/nokia-e71">Nokia E71</a> has a 2.5&nbsp;mm headphone jack instead of the 3.5&nbsp;mm (1/8") one, I had to figure out a way to hook up proper headphones into it. The E71 came with a set of earbuds that also do hands free, and while not bad, they're what you'd expect to get for free.<br />I had purchased a 16 GB microSDHC hard to go with the phone, so it now has more than four times the memory of my iPod. My hope was to start using it in lieu of the Apple product for portable music, and save carrying one more device. <br />In addition to the desire to get more comfortable headphones to go with the Nokia, I wanted to hook it up to my car stereo. It has USB and AUX connectivity; while I could use USB and have the phone appear as a mass storage device, that would prevent me from using playlists or other phone-native features. AUX, once more, runs into the problem of the missing millimeter in the connector.<br />To add insult to injury, the sleeve the phone comes with doesn't have an opening where the headphone jack is, and adding any of the 2.5 to 3.5&nbsp;mm adapters would prevent me from putting the phone into its protective little shell.<br />A lot of the cheap adapters online also seem to have negative feedback, claiming that the phone is finicky with them.<br /><br /><h2>The Solution</h2><br />It was pretty obvious to me that bluetooth was to be the answer. There are any number of bluetooth headphones out there, for a pretty reasonable price these days. I have friends who use them and are happy with them. For me, however, they were still not what I was looking for. I wanted to listen to the phone while working out, and sweating on headphones that are sophisticated would be bad, not to mention that the necessity of having electronics and batteries built-in adds undesirable heft. There are similarly bluetooth speakerphones, some with FM modulators or cable outputs, which seem to be a pretty slick way of dealing with the car problem.<br />What I wanted, though, was a little pendant or gizmo that I could plug my headphones into. A little research online reveals that such products exist, from several manufacturers, no less. I chose the <a href="http://www.motorola.com/motoinfo/product/details.jsp?globalObjectId=152">Motorola S705 Soundpilot</a> because it seemed to have the best mix of features, size and appearance I could find, and because it could be had for under $30 online.<br />I have now used the little thing for a few days, and I'm generally happy. Sound quality over bluetooth could be better, but isn't bad enough for me to really notice. I wouldn't plug it into my home stereo or Sennheisers, however. The menu is slow, and there's a bit of lag between operating the controls on the Soundpilot, the phone getting the command, and the audio reflecting the change. Also, while the S705 is supposed to automatically connect to your phone once it wakes up, this doesn't seem to work with the E71: I have to tell the Soundpilot to attach. Once attached, though, there are no problems.<br />The S705 is surprisingly packed with features. It has a built-in FM radio that tunes in real 0.1 MHz increments (so can tune to stations outside of the US as well), and has <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System">RDS</a>. It can pair to eight devices, so you can use it with your phone, laptop, iPod Touch and so forth; by default it wants to reattach to the last device it was connected to, but you can simply select a device you want to connect to from the menu.<br />It comes with a mini-USB charger, shirt clip (the manual even tells you not to wear it on your belt), carry pouch, manuals, and a neck lanyard, which with my intellect could not be adjusted to hold the device where the manual instructed.<br />It has two buttons and a four-way joystick; with these you can make a call, answer a call, reject a call, switch between multiple active calls, mute, redial, skip forward and backward tracks, adjust volume, pause and play, lock the keys, reset the unit, use the radio and navigate the menu. The display obviously shows you caller ID, but at least with the E71 does not show you media information, such as the song or artist name. Still, pretty good for a $30 little pendant. <br />The Soundpilot is a Bluetooth class 1 device, which means that it has a range of up to 300' -- presumably when paired with another class 1 device, and with kissing it's promised 8 hour playback time goodbye. I just have a regular cell phone, but when I forgot to take the phone with me and walked a few rooms away, the music never stopped. When pairing, you can either make it discoverable, or use it to discover other devices.<br /><br /><h2>Conclusion</h2><br />I've been very happy to see that bluetooth is, a decade after it's entry into consumer devices, living up to its promise. It's brought us cheap, useful, reliable ways to escape unnecessary cables and make life easier. If your device supports the bluetooth profiles needed (most notably A2DP which is used for streaming music), I can readily recommend this little gadget.Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-26965315097057226282009-07-14T19:55:00.000-07:002009-07-14T20:26:58.027-07:00Nokia E71 ResourcesThis post will mostly cater to owners of this phone, as I want to share a few good resources I've found.<br /><br /><a href="http://ssh-lroot.blogspot.com/2009/04/nokia-e71-shortcuts.html">A number of shortcuts</a>, most of which seem to work. The coolest one is holding down the left soft key, which will read out loud any new text messages. You can go into tools / speech and download different voices and languages.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.babinokia.com/themes-for-3rd-editon/">Themes for E71</a>. Babi is apparently fairly famous as a theme maker, for good reason. The themes are free, and I really like some of them. Many are offered with a new set of icons, which I tend to think aren't worth it, and are rather large in size; versions using default icons are also available. There are countless sites offering countless themes, but making one that works well in all the different menus is very hard.<br /><br /><a href="http://betalabs.nokia.com/">Nokia Beta Labs</a>. A bit like Google -- try out new software functionality for free. Several of the free downloads are just as stable as the rest of the software offerings (which isn't saying much) and really well done. Sports Tracker is a common favorite.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.google.com/mobile">Google tools</a>, including Google Maps and Google Mail.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nokiausa.com/get-support-and-software/product-support/nokia-e71/software-e71">Free Nokia Downloads</a>. <br /><br />You may also want to go through pre-installed applications such as QuickOffice -- many offer a "check for updates" option and several have significant updates available for free right from the phone.Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-20228684934037549342009-07-11T14:19:00.000-07:002009-07-11T14:44:01.253-07:00Cell Phone Hackery - Japanese on E71<h2>Introduction</h2><br />I have some rather strong opinions on the state of the availability of cell phones in the United States, as well as carrier policies regarding them and branding, but I may elaborate (rant) on all that in another post.<br /><br />I recently purchased an unlocked Nokia E71 for my own use. I will not be able to take advantage of its 3G or 3.5G speeds, as I'm with T-Mobile which uses different 3G frequencies from anyone else on the planet, and most notably different from AT&T. Still, I've been remarkably happy with this two-year-old technology phone. It's fast, and its build quality, fit and finish, and choice of materials makes it one of the best phones in existence. It's no iPhone, though; the user interface that Apple has conjured up is unrivaled, and in the U.S. the market has exploded with accessories for the iPhone, while you're lucky to find anything for Nokia E-series, let alone Sony-Ericssons Symbian phones. Nokia also completely bungled the methodology for purchasing software, and has only recently started to catch up - I fear it might be a bit late, though.<br /><br />My previous phone was an E61, which I got off EBay; it was an unlocked phone originally from a Swedish carrier, so it had the scandinavian keyboard with ä, ö and å. This was good for me, but this time I'll have to settle for the US / UK layout. I had also replaced the software with the Scandinavian one. To prevent user confusion, most likely, Nokia makes available software updates in all the various localizations for its phones, but you cannot install Finnish support on a US phone, for example, without some surgery into places you're not supposed to be poking.<br /><br />This is something I may look at later, as the Scandinavian images support English in addition to the local languages, so it would work well for me. Today's challenge, however was simple: how to get the E71 to display Japanese characters (kana and kanji.)<br /><br /><h2>How to Make an E71 Display Kana and Kanji</h2><br />Nokia ships a dictionary application with the phone, which is neat, and lets you download various language packs for this application for free, which is even neater. Without further ado, I downloaded the Japanese pack - and discovered that all non-roman characters showed up as boxes. What the heck?<br /><br />Internet to the rescue, though. I found <a href="http://palm.roguelife.org/nokia/jplain.xhtml#fonts">this instruction set for the E61</a> and further <a href="http://palm.roguelife.org/nokia/jplain.xhtml#fonts">this site for fonts</a> and went to modify my new phone, with good results.<br /><br />The steps, in short, are:<br /><ol><br /><li><a href="http://www.drjukka.com/">Download</a> and install Y-Browser.<br /><li>Navigate to <tt>z:/resource/fonts</tt>, and make note of all the font names, <strong>except for <tt>S60ZDIGI.ttf</tt></strong>.<br /><li>Find, either from the Nokia SDK or your favorite Internet mechanism, <tt>heiseigoths60.ttf</tt>.<br /><li>Make three (or as many fonts as you had) copies of the <tt>heiseigoths60.ttf</tt><br />file, and rename them look exactly like the fonts installed in the phone.<br /><li><a href="http://palm.roguelife.org/nokia/jplain.xhtml#fonts">Download</a> one of the <tt>.gdr</tt> fonts. I'm not sure which works better than the other.<br /><li>Plug in your microSD card to a USB card reader, and copy all these files to <tt>\resources\fonts</tt> on the card.<br /><li>Turn off your phone, put the card in, turn it on, and voila, Japanese fonts!<br /></ol>Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-25967083565990241842009-05-30T19:40:00.000-07:002009-05-30T20:12:57.525-07:00My List of Useful Symbian S60 ApplicationsHere are links to some applications I have found worthwhile on my E61 (S60 v3).<br /><br /><a href="http://m.google.com">Google Maps</a> -- Go to <a href="http://m.google.com">m.google.com</a> on your phone and download Google Maps. It should autodetect the phone. The turn-by-turn navigation is a bit lacking, but the application is free, and you get map, satellite AND street view, plus search! Also, it supports Latitude, so you can have it run in the background and let select people find you on a map. As a bonus, on my E61 which only has cell-based location, it can use an external Bluetooth GPS receiver if one is available. Cool!<br /><br /><a href="http://m.google.com">Google Mail</a> -- Go to <a href="http://m.google.com">m.google.com</a> on your phone and download Google Mail. It should autodetect the phone. For me, at least with encryption enabled, the current version is really slow, but it's a good interface to your gmail, assuming you use gmail. It can run as a background task and buzz when you get new mail.<br /><br /><a href="http://m.google.com">Google Search</a> -- By now you should have gotten the gist. What this does on my E61 is retask the ctrl key to launch a search term input. So to launch a Google search, I just hit ctrl, type in the string, hit enter, and it automatically invokes the browser, goes to Google, and presents the results.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com">YouTube</a> -- Go to <a href="http://www.youtube.com">http://www.youtube.com</a> (NOT m.youtube.com!) and find the client download that's cleverly hidden there somewhere, or download from <a href="http://www.symbian-guru.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/youtube.sisx">this link</a> from <a href="http://www.symbian-guru.com">Symbian Guru</a>.<br /><br />Mail for Exchange, available from Nokia. It integrates with my work Exchange account and gives me access to the corporate directory. More importantly, it syncs my address book, calendar, and tasks as well, if desired. It seems to work very well.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.drjukka.com/YBrowser.html">Y-Browser</a> -- Like File Explorer for your phone, and free. You may have to figure out how to let your phone install unsigned applications, or use a signing gateway to sign the package.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/software/item/Handy_Taskman_for_S60.php">Handy Taskman</a> -- like hitting ctrl+alt+del on your phone. Shows you memory, tasks, lets you kill them and switch between them. A lot better than the built in task manager, but $20.<br /><br /><a href="http://mtvoid.com/calcium/index.html">Calcium</a> -- A basic calculator, but with a excellent interface, especially for phones with just a number pad! Also, free.<br /><br />I also use a product called RemindMe which I bought, but it hasn't been developed for three years now. Basically, applications can override the normal alarm behavior of the phone, letting you set different ring tones to email, MMS, SMS, missed calls etc. and allow the phone to bug you every so many minutes until you acknowledge it. This is so I can replace my pager and won't miss pages even if I don't hear the initial message noise. There appear to be other applications, like mRemind, for the same purpose, but I haven't tried them.Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5503831938507164989.post-13271064814908080692009-03-17T12:51:00.001-07:002009-03-17T13:52:42.914-07:00Thoughts on ThermostatsI live in Florida, which means that aside from a month or two in the winter it's hot and humid. Air conditioning is a must; much can be done by using tree cover, tall rooms and natural sources of cooling, but none of those apply to modern construction, so central A/C it is.<br /><br />Now, my house happens to be two stories tall, which exacerbates the problem, but the same issue is commonly found with any manner of multi-room construction and central air conditioning: the room you're in isn't the right temperature, while other rooms, in particular the one with the thermostat, may be.<br /><br />In every house I've lived in in Florida, and that's a fair number, there has been one thermostat situated by the return air intake. The logic makes sense: all the air has to pass by that location, so it's a pretty good indication if the temperature of the internal air. This logic, of course, suffers from a major problem: the air only moves past this point when the air handler is running. So when it's hot where you're at and cool in the core of the house by the thermostat, there is no relief. Instead of running the air handler (which moves the air; the A/C cools it) only when the A/C is active one can use the "fan on" setting and have air circulate all the time. This gets old, though, and costs a bunch in electricity, even though it turns out that the fan only consumes about 1/10th of the energy of the full system. <br /><br />I've suffered with this conundrum for a while, figuring I'd just live with it, until my cohabitant mentioned being bothered by the same issue. This promptly turned on my "must fix it" mode and I went to research options.<br /><br />The right way of doing this would obviously be to have a separate thermostat in every room, and a method of adjusting the individual temperature of each room. This option gets rejected as unworkably complex and expensive, even with adjustable baffles, not to mention the lack of HOA approval for installing a bunch more A/C units to do it right.<br /><br />So, then, the next best solution, I figured, would be to move the thermostat to where it's hot (second floor). Due to the particular situation, this pretty much calls for some wireless magic, as running a cable anywhere from the current location would be a bit painful. No problem, it turns out! Honeywell has a <a href="http://customer.honeywell.com/honeywell/ProductInfo.aspx/YTH6320R1001">nifty solution</a>, and so do a few other vendors. If you can string wire, you're even better off. You can also expand some of these systems by adding external sensors and more than one indoor sensor that get averaged. Neat! But where would I put the remote sensor? There are three bedrooms to choose from.<br /><br />I kept digging, and came upon a better (simpler) solution. There are a number of thermostats that run the air handler for a while if the cooling (or heating) cycle hasn't kicked in for a period of time. The idea is that this way the air keeps moving, but the fan isn't on all the time either. The centrally located sensor now makes sense again, since it guarantees a good sampling of real air in the house. Some of the Honewell TH8110U, TH8320U and TH8321U ones do this, as does the White-Rodgers 1F95-1277, Braeburn 5300, ClimaTouch CT03TSB, Hunter 44860 and the Lux Products CAG1500. Carrier and Lennox also have something similar; Lennox had by far the best thermostat I found, but you can't buy one off the street.<br /><br />A number of these products are "professional installation only" type, which means they aren't dumbed down to the average consumer and may require a bit more careful reading of the manual to figure out. On the other hand, they tend to have pretty decent manuals and installation instructions and many more options than the Home Depot specials.<br /><br />I spent a good while going over the manuals, since this feature isn't always advertised, and even when it is, finding out just how customizable it is and how long the fan may be inoperative was pretty tough. While at it, I found a bunch of really common sense features that made me wonder why they aren't more popular.<br /><br />1) External temperature sensor. Not so big in Florida, but in other climates this is used by the thermostat to figure out if it can use the heat pump or if it's so cold outside that it needs to switch to straight electric heat. That, and it shows you the temperature inside and out, just like a thermometer. Magic!<br /><br />2) Control of the A/C not just based on temperature, but also on humidity. Air too humid? Run A/C for a while. Alternatively, it can take humidity into account when figuring out the "feels like" temperature. If it's dry, it doesn't need to be as cool as when it's humid, since it feels cooler. Even if you don't control the A/C based on the humidity, the thermostat can still display it, so you can use it as hygrometer.<br /><br />3) Adaptive learning: the thermostat figures out how long it takes to get down from one temperature to another. For example, if you've set your temperature to 80 during the day when you're gone, and 76 starting at 5:30 pm when you get home, the system figures out when it needs to start cooling down to reach 76 at exactly 5:30.<br /><br />4) Remote thermostats and multiple thermostats. Carry one with you, and always be comfy!<br /><br />5) Timed overrides. Instead of overriding to the start of the next program, or permanently, set the override for the next X hours. Some also had vacation modes where you could set an override for a number of days.<br /><br />6) Energy meters. Every digital thermostat I've ever had has kept track of running time to remind you to change filters. I found that you can tell some models how many amps your A/C, your heater and your air handler pulls, and possibly even the cost of power. The thermostat then figures out how long it runs, how much power it draws, and gives you a running total of kWh or even straight up dollars. Obviously the runtime information is in all of the units, they just don't let you see it!<br /><br />Note that so far everything has been done with dirt cheap electronics. Most of these features add a little logic to the thermostat, some use RF remote technology of the kind you can find in a $5 Wal-Mart wireless thermometer. Yet to get them into your house ends up costing you a bit. It's yet another example of charging for intellectual property. The technical cost of doing any of these things is pennies, yet to get them you have to dig fairly deep into your wallet.<br /><br />I also started to think about all the neat things that a thermostat could do, but I didn't see anyone sell. Like hook up into Ethernet or wireless so you can connect to it from your computer, easily change programs, check run times, and change temperatures from afar. Or integrate into RFID/Bluetooth/alarm system/motion sensors to figure out when the house is or isn't occupied; no more need to be tied to strict programs -- if you stay at work late, no need to cool an empty house; if it's a day off, you get home early, or you're home sick, it knows not to let things get too hot despite it being the middle of a work day.Toivo Vollhttps://plus.google.com/105881943267833989127noreply@blogger.com0